ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIEDS 123 



White names seven finches in his list, and Barring- 

 ton includes eight, none of them very noted song- 

 sters, except the linnet. Our list would include 

 the sparrows above named, and the indigo-bird, the 

 goldfinch, the purple finch, the scarlet tanager, the 

 rose-breasted grosbeak, the blue grosbeak, and the 

 cardinal bird. Of these birds, all except the fox 

 sparrow and the blue grosbeak are familiar summer 

 songsters throughout the Middle and Eastern States. 

 The indigo-bird is a midsummer and an all-summer 

 songster of great brilliancy. So is the tanager. I 

 judge there is no European thrush that, in the pure 

 charm of melody and hymn-like serenity and spirit- 

 uality, equals our wood and hermit thrushes, as 

 there is no bird there that, in simple lingual excel- 

 lence, approaches our bobolink. 



The European cuckoo makes more music than 

 ours, and their robin redbreast is a better singer 

 than the allied species, to wit, the bluebird, with 

 us. But it is mainly in the larks and warblers that 

 the European birds are richer in songsters than are 

 ours. We have an army of small wood-warblers, 

 no less than forty species, but most of them 

 have faint chattering or lisping songs that escape all 

 but the most attentive ear, and then they spend the 

 summer far to the north. Our two wagtails are our 

 most brilliant warblers, if we except the kinglets, 

 which are Northern birds in summer, and the Ken- 

 tucky warbler, which is a Southern bird; but they 

 probably do not match the English blackcap, or 

 whitethroat, or garden warbler, to say nothing of 



